Dreams: The Village

The dream is hazy, already receding from memory.

I'm in a village. It's muddy, wooden, pre-industrial. A post-apocalyptic relic or people who have chosen to abandon modern society and create their own? It's unclear.

I'm traveling with people — people from my workplace. I don't know how we got here. We're just here. We're outsiders. We don't belong.

I find a library. It's clean, warm, bright. A man cares for the books. He's my age, wears glasses, disheveled hair. Harry Potter grown up, without the trademark scar.

I like this man, though I do not know his name. I like him because he cares for the books, cares for knowledge. We talk. It's good.

Someone comes? I don't know how, but I'm in a hut with plank walls and a dirt floor. I'm lying on a metal table. Three women are in the room with me, preparing rudimentary surgical instruments on a dirty cart. I see a bone saw. They think I'm wrong. They want to cut into my brain to make me right, make me like them. They want to take my knowledge, my independence, my soul.

I leap off the table, flip it, pin them against the wall. I run. I look for the people I was traveling with.

I find my boss in another hut tinkering on a rusty vehicle. Post-apocalyptic relic. He's wearing overalls and a simplistic smile. I shake him, tell him about the women who wanted to cut into my brain. Nothing registers. It's too late for him.

I run.